Shoe rationing was announced to the American public on February 7, 1943. It went into effect two days later. This form (pictured below) from the Museum’s collection was designed for an individual who either had to get a replacement for recently purchased, defective shoes or “an individual who would suffer serious hardship if he were unable to obtain an extra shoe ration.” The form also ask the individual if they have a relative with an extra shoe ration and if so, why can’t they ask them for it. It was issued June 22, 1943
This example of a wartime shoe ration is from the Miller County Museum and Historical Society; Tuscumbia, MO.
Stamp issued in 1948 memorializing the Four Chaplains
On 3 February 1943, the US Army transport Dorchester was struck by a German U-boat’s torpedo and sank within only 20 minutes. She was carrying 902 men, en route in a convoy from the United States to an Army Command Base in southern Greenland. On board were also four chaplains, who were termed the “Immortal Chaplains” for their selfless actions and sacrifices they made in the cold North Atlantic waters. The four Army chaplains were Lt. George L. Fox (Methodist), Lt. Alexander D. Goode (Jewish), Lt. John P. Washington (Roman Catholic), and Lt. Clark V. Poling (Dutch Reformed). They remained a comforting and calming presence in the chaotic scene of the early morning sinking. Witnesses recall hearing their voices among the terror. The chaplains helped distribute life jackets until those ran out, and then they gave up their own jackets to others. Of the 902 men aboard the Dorchester, 230 survived and 672 perished. As the ship went down, survivors in nearby rafts recalled seeing the four chaplains, praying on the slanting deck with their arms linked.
Post by Curator Kimberly Guise.
Special Event – “Brotherhood and Sacrifice at Sea: The True Story of the Immortal Four Chaplains of WWII”
A Presentation by Judge Barry Sax, followed by a conversation with veteran Richard “Dick” Swanson
Thursday, February 28, 2013, 5:00 pm Reception, 6:00 pm Presentation
On February 3, 1943, a US Army transport, the Dorchester, was making its way in a convoy from the United States to an Army Command Base in southern Greenland. She was carrying over 900 men, but the Dorchester never arrived at its destination.
She was struck by a torpedo fired from a German U-boat, and the transport sank within 20 minutes.
On board the Dorchester were four chaplains who are now “immortal” for the selfless actions and sacrifices they made in the cold North Atlantic waters.
Join us on Thursday, February 28th to hear this harrowing, yet heroic, story from Judge Barry Sax, a retired Department of Defense Administrative Judge, historian and member of the Board of Directors of the Chapel of the Four Chaplains at the Philadelphia Navy Yard.
Following Judge Sax’s presentation will be a unique opportunity to hear from Richard “Dick” Swanson, who was aboard the USS Comanche, one of the Coast Guard Cutters that was a part of the Dorchester’s convoy. The Comanche rescued nearly 100 of the survivors and Swanson himself was later awarded the US Navy and Marine Corps Medal for Heroism during the rescue operations.
The event is free and open to the public, but registration is strongly encouraged.
Louisiana native Jefferson DeBlanc received the Medal of Honor for heroic action on 31 January 1943, seventy years ago today. To learn more about Jefferson DeBlanc, see our Focus On: Guadalcanal or visit the Museum to see DeBlanc’s Medal of Honor on display.
Jefferson DeBlanc
Page 1 of DeBlanc's Medal of Honor Citation
Page 2 of DeBlanc's Medal of Honor Citation
DeBlanc, alongside his wife, receiving the Medal of Honor from President Truman
DeBlanc's Medal of Honor on display at the National WWII Museum
The Education Department has been collecting WWII-era aircraft “computers” used by aviators to navigate planes. Air navigation computers demonstrate the concepts of pressure, density, distance, and velocity by coupling logarithmic and linear scales. These artifacts provide a context and setting for students to explore physics, chemistry, and math and help to get kids excited about STEM topics.
We need your help! Look at the pictures below. Did you use one of these computers or know specific information about how they were used? Please email annie.tete@nationalww2museum.org. Any information will help us to design meaningful educational programs for students of all ages!
Computer Air Navigation, Dead Reckoning Type CPU-26A/P, Felsenthal Instruments Co.
Aircraft Navigational Computer Mark 8, G. Felsenthal & Sons
Altitude Correction Computer AN 5837-1, Cruver Manufacturing Co.
True Airspeed Computer AN 5836-1, G. Felsenthal & Sons
True Airspeed Computer AN 5836-1, G. Felsenthal & Sons
Time and Distance Computer Type D-4, Cruver Manufacturing Co.
Calvin Benedict served with the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division. He was captured in Normandy on 7 June 1944 and spent the remainder of the war in Stalag IIIC. On Christmas Eve 1944, he wrote this letter to his parents in New Orleans, which they received over a month later.
Gift in Memory of Calvin Pope Benedict, 2004.405.030
To see more artifacts from Americans who spent Christmas 1944 in German POW camps see our Focus On: Kriegie Christmas
On December 1, 1942, mandatory gas rationing went into effect.
America’s military needed millions of tires for jeeps, trucks and other vehicles. Tires required rubber. Rubber was also used to produce tanks and planes. But when Japan invaded Southeast Asia, the United States was cut off from one of its chief sources of this critical raw product.
American overcame the rubber shortage in several ways. Speed limits and gas rationing forced people to limit their driving. This reduced wear on tires. A synthetic rubber industry was created. The public also carpooled and continued rubber scrap for recycling.
All automobiles received gas ration “grade.” “A” meant nonessential. “B” indicated work use (for instance, a car used by a traveling salesman). “C” stood for essential use (for example, doctors, clergy and civil defense workers). “T” was for long-distance trucks. Most cars were graded “A,” which meant the owner received stamps for three gallons of gas per week.
Young Marines enjoy fresh coffee after successfully taking Engebi Island of Eniwetok Atoll in February 1944. Gift of Mary Noble, 2010.130.081
Beginning on 29 November 1942, coffee was rationed for citizens on the American Home Front. Doing more with less wasn’t completely new to Americans, who by this point had become accustomed to the rationing of rubber, gasoline, cheese, clothing and other goods since the beginning of that year. The consumption of milk and sugar, the butter to coffee’s bread, was also curtailed. In the wake of coffee rationing, Postum–a drink made of roasted grains meant to substitute for coffee–became exceedingly popular during the war years. Believe it or not, even acorns were used to create a java-like drink!
The rationing of coffee wasn’t due to a lack of the product–in fact it was readily available from South America–but more so due to the lack of means to ship large quantities of what was considered an unnecessary luxury in wartime, as well as the ever-present danger to US merchant ships from German U-boats. Under rationing conditions, families were allowed one pound of coffee every five weeks. However, coffee was rationed for less than a year, released from the list in July 1943.
Today marks the 70th anniversary of the scuttling of the French fleet based at Toulon under orders from French Admiral Jean de Laborde. These measures were taken in order to prohibit the use of the ships by Axis powers following the unraveling of French-German relations after French cooperation with the Allies in Operation Torch–the invasion of North Africa–and the subsequent entry of German forces into the previously unoccupied Vichy -controlled region of France. Several German divisions were sent to Toulon with the sole purpose of preventing the scuttling of the French fleet there, but failed miserably–the French ultimately rendered more than 70 of their own ships useless.
Image Gallery:
Images are a Gift of the USS Slater: Destroyer Escort Historical Museum, 2010.555
Today marks the 70th anniversary of the creation of the Coast Guard Women’s Reserve, better known as the SPARs—a contraction of the Coast Guard motto, “Semper Paratus – Always Ready.” These women could not serve at sea or outside the continental US (though in 1944 they were allowed to be sent to Alaska and Hawaii), and they had no authority over any man regardless of rank. However, they were given the same pay as their counterparts.
Over the course of World War II, between 10,000 and 11,000 women volunteered. The average enlisted applicant was 22 years of age (29 for the average officer) with a high school diploma and a few years of work experience. The Women’s Reserve preferred applicants who had experience on the water, as swimmers of boaters. Once enlisted, the SPARs were trained at Oklahoma A & M, Hunter College, Iowa State Teachers College, and later the Biltmore Hotel in Palm Beach, Florida. The Coast Guard was the only one of the US military branches to train its female officers at the branch’s own academy, located in New London, Connecticut.
After a month of training, most SPARs were assigned duties that were clerical in nature, although they also worked on other projects such as rigging parachutes, driving vehicles, cooking, and as radio operators. Perhaps the most unique job for SPARs was as operators of the then brand new—and highly classified—LORAN technology used by the Coast Guard for calculating the precise location of ships and aircraft.
As with the other newly minted women’s units of other branches, SPARs were needed in order to relieve men of office work and send them into the Atlantic to stave off the rising threat of German U-boats. A government recruitment video specified that some of the most highly desired positions were for women with backgrounds as lab techs, dental hygienists, dietitians, engineers or draftsmen.
A sign of the times, many families of the women who enlisted were shocked, or unsupportive of their daughters serving in the military. Though by the time the war ended and women in the military proved that their capabilities were equal to the men they released for duty, it would be a new era for women in the American workforce.
SPARs Recruitment Film
SPARS Artifact Highlight: Mary Mills Weinmann
Gift of John Weinmann, 2007.102
This SPARs uniform was issued to Mary Mills Weinmann, who served in the United States Coast Guard Women’s Reserve between 16 September 1943 and 30 September 1945. She was assigned to the Coast Guard Port Authority in New Orleans, Louisiana. Mrs. Weinmann served as a SPAR on a part time basis, for 307 days. The rank on this uniform is that of an Ensign, but she was promoted prior to discharge to the rank of Lt. (jg).
Operation Torch, the invasion of North Africa, represented a series of firsts for the Allied crusade against Nazi Germany and her Allies. It was the first amphibious landing undertaken by the US Army in the European theater. It was the first combat operation commanded by Dwight Eisenhower. And it was the first, and quite possibly the only, operation of the war in which the Allied commanders expected their opponents holding the beach to offer no resistance at all.
The landing beaches in Morocco and Algeria were held by Vichy French forces. These troops were loyal to Germany mostly due to a tenuous agreement whereby the Nazis agreed to keep part of France free from German occupation provided the Vichy resisted an Allied invasion. The Allied leadership believed that when the Vichy French saw the Allied armadas approaching the landing beaches, they would immediately join forces with the invaders to liberate North Africa.
Allied commanders also had to contend with the native North African population. Their willingness to aid the Allied cause was questionable at best. The primary hope of the Allied command was that both the French and the native population would willingly and energetically aid the liberators. Barring that, they would have settled for simply allowing the American and British troops to move through Morocco and Algeria quickly so that they could smash Rommel’s Afrika Korps on the anvil of General Bernard Montgomery’s forces advancing westward from Egypt.
In an attempt to sway both the Vichy French and the North African natives to the Allied cause, thousands of leaflets were dropped over North Africa prior to the landings in November 1942. This leaflet was picked up in Oran, Algeria, by Oscar Rich, who landed there as a member of the 1st Quartermaster Battalion, 1st Infantry Division. The leaflet, printed in French on one side and Arabic on the other, reads in part:
Message from the President of the United States:
We come to you to liberate you from your conquerors, whose only desire is to deprive you of your sovereign right to worship freely and your right to live your way of life in peace.
We come to you solely to defeat your enemies – we wish you no harm. We come to you with the assurance that we will leave as soon as the menace of Germany and Italy is dissipated. Help us and the day of universal peace will arrive.
Unfortunately for the Allies, the Vichy French offered stiff resistance to the landings in some sectors, and the day of universal peace was delayed indefinitely.
French side of US propaganda leaflet dropped over Oran.
Arabic side of leaflet collected by Oscar Rich.
Oscar Rich served with the 1st Infantry Division throughout the war.
